Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and in this episode we are going to be getting back into our imaging series. I once again have Joshua Sherman with me here to talk about this topic, and we are going to be getting into the biblical passages of how we see imaging in the Bible. So I hope you are going to really enjoy this episode.
Thanks, Joshua, for joining me again to talk about the image of God. Last conversation, there were certain promises dropped to show where and how we can see imaging language all throughout Scripture and that this is a very, very deeply embedded biblical topic.
Joshua Sherman: Yeah. And I suppose it's time to, to pull the Jerry McGuire and, and show the money, , [00:01:00] if you will. , so this will be a be a fun conversation. There's so much to dig into and, , a lot of it is really obvious once you kind of see the pattern. , but it's also something you can kind of oversell, right? So, Hmm.
What, what I want to do in this conversation , is take a look at , these different details that kind of pop up and say, we're going to look for these things and we're gonna find them, and then we're gonna ask, does that really fit this pattern? Right? So it's not saying everywhere you see any little detail like this, that automatically means that this is what the author meant, right?
It's not. , that's not how language works, frankly. And metaphors can be mixed in various ways and, and so can stories and details and that's where you get into trouble with proof texting and word studies. When you think everything always means the same thing and everything's always totally connected and whatever.
But as we look at this, when we start to see the details that we're gonna talk about pop up in other places, I think [00:02:00] what we'll see is there are a lot of places where it does pop up in ways that are relevant to the image of God. And that's gonna start to connect a lot more things and it gets really fun and exciting.
Carey Griffel: Yeah. As a reminder to people, or if you haven't listened to previous episodes about the image of God that we have been doing together, we have been really digging into the embodied image of God. What that means, To be the embodied image.
So we're both talking about physicality as well as talking about how the image actually plays out in our lives, what it means, and whether or not we see evidence of it, and what that evidence might look like, , and connected to the ancient Near Eastern context of the image of God. We have to get into the topic of idols and what idols are, what idolatry might be, how the Bible talks about it, and how the people of the Bible would [00:03:00] have interacted with this topic.
Joshua Sherman: Yeah, so I mean, really if you, if you haven't listened to this series, it's probably a good one to start at the beginning because this will be very interesting. But there are, there are some points of connection and some things where you're gonna be like, where did you get that from? Well, we, we talked about it.
So definitely a good one to go back and look.
Carey Griffel: Yeah. Yeah. And, and we're trying to do it where we're really looking very closely at it from our modern perspective, but also trying to dig very deeply into what that ancient perspective was and how those two things connect.
Last time we talked about the image being a thing or an ontological way of looking at humanity meaning that it is a noun. But I think what Joshua and I are kind of paralleling our thoughts on is that we can't really seem to divorce ontology and being with function and the verb of, imaging God, like [00:04:00] that doesn't mean that , there is some way of not being the image of God, right.
Or that it is something that we can take away or lose because it's not, because it is embedded into our very being. So it's kind of a difficult conversation to have because verbs and nouns are not the same thing, and yet , you can't really have one without the other. Right? Like saying that the image of God is a verb doesn't mean that there is a particular set of things you have to do in order to image God.
It doesn't mean that there is a hierarchy or ratio of proportion that you can have the image of God in. Mm-hmm. So none of that is what we're saying here. But at the same time, it's like, it's like you, you can't be 90% of a cat if you act like a cat, right? So you, you can't be 90% of the image of God by [00:05:00] acting according to God's will better or, or something like that, right? Yeah. We are all the image. , every person who has ever been born, every person who has ever been conceived, humanity is the image of God and nothing and no one can take that away from us.
Joshua Sherman: I think maybe a good analogy for it would be to ask somebody what it takes to be one of your kids.
If someone walked up to you and they started telling you that your kid is not your kid because they're not doing certain things that you might want them to do or expect them to do, you're gonna look at them and you're first of all gonna be like, You're wrong. And then you're also gonna be like, and I don't see why you think you have a valid opinion about this.
It's my child. I know, right? And so there's a little bit of that same dynamic, I feel like when you start getting people asking questions about, well is this person in the image of God? Is a person that does this or does that in the image of God? And it's like, no. Like God [00:06:00] decided we are his imagers. So we don't really get a say and all the interlopers that wanna start coming in and asking these questions and telling God, well this is what it takes to be one of your imagers.
Like, he's like, no, like I already decided this. Right. This is the's a done deal. Granted humanity, it's a done deal. Leave it alone. Right. So, but I, I do think we can talk about some level of: do we see people being more or less able to properly image God? And I don't mean that in the way that most of the time that conversation is going to go.
Right. So usually what you're gonna get with something like that is people will think, well you know, maybe this person has , a body that's not functioning exactly the way that we think is normal, quote unquote, whatever that is. , or maybe their mind doesn't function quite the same. , and if we have , in our heads, this idea that those things are the [00:07:00] things that make up the image of God, then that person would then be more or less in the image of God than somebody else is entirely not what I'm talking about.
And I understand entirely why careful people that are looking at ethics both in philosophy and theology like , people like Carmen Imes who wrote being God's image why she hesitates at that and says, no, that's not how this works, but I'm gonna take a different angle on this and look at it and say, In Scripture, do we see things that seem to indicate that people are better prepared or less prepared?
Better able or less able in a relational sense in terms of like how they're relating to God and then able to do what they're supposed to do in a functional sense of doing the thing. So there's a lot of stuff kind of wrapped up in that. One of the things we talked about last time with idolatry is saying, well, yes, , we do see this.
And one of the ways that we see it is that idols are very clearly denounced as being worthless and not being able to do what they claim to do, and that people that worship idols become like them. [00:08:00] So that's one way. We also see this in Romans where Paul spends the first chapter basically saying , here's , what happened with humanity, especially the gentiles as they devolved into idolatry, and here's how that messed up their being able to properly image God.
And then spends chapter two saying, you think you're better as a Jew? Well, you're wrong, and here's why. And then gets into chapter three, and we get into that famous verse where he says, that all have sin didn't fallen short of the glory of God. And you look at that and you go, you know, it's like, oh, what did he mean? , and people focus on, sin. They focus on this idea almost like, it's like you didn't meet a perfect standard boo, right? Hmm. As if like the perfect standard is the point. Yeah. And what we see in this conversation when we bring in glory and image is that the point is that you were made to image God.
And when you sin and fall short, you're not doing that well. Because glory , [00:09:00] is an integral part of imaging God well, of displaying his likeness, of ordering creation around you of functioning the way you're supposed to as a child of God and co-heir and all of these kinds of things. And so it's important and that's why sin is bad and that's why idolatry is bad because they pull us away from what we were designed for.
Carey Griffel: I mean, if we take John Walton's framework of functional identity and creation, and nothing just exists without a function. So there's a very interconnectedness with ontology and function in that. And it's not really to say that it's about doing something well, it's about acting within the order that God has structured mm-hmm within creation. And as far as humanity goes, that means that we are to represent him on earth. So when you're not, then that doesn't mean you're not an imager, you're just a bad imager like. You're, you're introducing [00:10:00] chaos into the system.
Joshua Sherman: Yeah. , and you can look at this kind of similarly asking the question about what it means to be a child of the devil, for instance. Right. And people will talk about some things like the serpent seed, right? And you know, are you truly just the seed of the serpent and there's nothing you can do and blah, blah, blah. That's just not the level that we're talking about things on because everybody being made in the image of God means there is no ontological serpent seed, at least not when it comes to humanity. But we do see people, right? That do the deeds of demons, do the deeds of serpents. , and doing that is not imaging God well. Right? So we do have a sense of: you are made to do this and you're not doing it well, and that actually makes it worse. And we talked about that too.
Like, it, it's, it makes it worse that you are an imager that's not doing what you're supposed to be doing than if you were to somehow lose the image entirely and just be like, well, you know, Johnny went off and, and he's not that anymore and so, you know, he's just gonna do his thing and [00:11:00] whatever. But it's like, no, every single time you're doing these things, you are an imager that's doing these things and that's bad.
Right. So it does add a lot of weight to what it means to be human. It has a lot of importance to what it means to be human , and our relationship with God and those around us.
Carey Griffel: This is also the theme that we see in Genesis where human depravity just grows and grows and grows through the, the first five chapters until we get to the point of the flood.
Joshua Sherman: Yeah. Part of the, the issue I have with the usual way of understanding, something like total depravity, is that, That framework is usually understood as the fall, done. Mm-hmm. Right, right. And right. And Genesis definitely. There we go. Definitely has like this whole slide and, and you can actually see that even in the way that Paul looks at things in Romans one, he starts to talk about it and he's like, for, although they knew God, so they [00:12:00] know God.
Right. Okay. They neither glorified him as God, nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claim to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
That's not talking about Adam and Eve right? Because we don't see them. Mm-hmm. Exchanging for Yeah. The images of other creatures. We do see that later on in Scripture. One of the other points of connectivity with this, , if we wanna talk about kinda the practicality side of it a, a plug for Matthew Bates books on this.
He has a couple books on the gospel that are really good , and he ties into the image of God , and glory and how this kind of interacts. And he talks about this kind of glory cycle, if you will, that part of the problem that we are facing is not just sin, but it's actually the lack of glory because humanity is not fulfilling the function we are created for. And we are meant to be kind of pivotally [00:13:00] involved in the ordering of creation, in the representation of God, in the establishment of his rule. And so when we're not doing that, then creation suffers. And you can see clearly that that's a big deal because Paul talks about, in Romans eight when he's saying , Hey, like creation's, like waiting for us to get back on the bus, to get back on the train. Come on, you could do it. , and you know, that's a big part of it. And so Matthew Bates talks about in that, in the gospel precisely which he put out a few years ago. And then he actually has a, a book the newly launched called Why the Gospel. I'm about halfway through that now. I'm, I'm a little behind.
But that's just launched this week. I would definitely recommend picking that up. There's a lot of good stuff in there. And he and, and Carmen Imes are a lot on the same page when it comes to , that glory language imaging language and the connectivity there.
Carey Griffel: Yeah, absolutely. , I couldn't recommend their work more.
So everybody should be reading Matthew Bate's new book, which is called Why the Gospel, living the Good News of King Jesus With Purpose. [00:14:00] And also Carmen Ime's book, which is just coming out called Being God's Image, why Creation Still Matters. And I will be putting links to both of those in my show notes for everyone.
Joshua Sherman: And of course, we also have to, to link McDowell's book because we're gonna talk about it too,
Carey Griffel: right? Yeah. We're gonna be getting into Catherine McDowell's book, which is the Image of God in the Garden of Eden. That one is a little more scholarly. I, I wouldn't say it's hard to read, but it's got footnotes and it's got transliteration of language, which might be a little bit daunting for some people.
But if you want to get into the ancient Near Eastern context of the image of God, there's just not a better book that you can get that will summarize a lot of that for you and really give you a lot of detail.
Joshua Sherman: So that, that's what we're gonna get into. Now we're gonna start talking about her work and how this plays in, some of the things that points out.
Obviously, some of the things that we talk about, the connections we make may or not be connections that she would make or endorse . So, you know, this is what happens. You put out [00:15:00] scholarship and then people look at it and they see connections and they wanna talk about it. So we're gonna do that and I, I think it'll be really good.
So essentially , what I wanna explore today is looking at details in Scripture that highlight , the failure of both Jew and Gentile to bring glory to God by acting properly as his imagers. And I wanna explore these motifs that highlight places where , we are being told that an individual person or a leader or whole nation seems to becoming more or less able , or doing better or doing worse at fulfilling the purpose that God created humanity for. So we talked last time about some of the parallels that we see in Genesis about how Israel's neighbors understood idolatry. And we highlighted the ways that imposter Gods attempted to use the knowledge of the heavens and the earth to make children immatures of their own.
And so today I wanna look , a little bit more at that detail and then start to kind of say, where do we see this in Scripture? And does it seem to fit this pattern of, oh, this is Scripture pointing out through this cultural lens that this person is in [00:16:00] a better place or a worse place to do what they were created to do in the first place.
So looking at McDowell on page 115, she has , a really good brief kind of summary Of two different things. So Image of God in the Garden of Eden is, comparing Genesis two five through 3 24 with the Mesopotamian mis p pit p ritual, which is the opening of the mouth and the, I don't even know how to pronounce it. Whipptr, wpt-r rituals in ancient Egypt. So these are the ceremonies that the Mesopotamians had to vivify idols, and then the ceremony that the Egyptians had to basically vivify the dead in their minds, is what they were trying to do. And there's a lot of similarities there in what they were doing in general.
Many differences, but again, similarities. So this is from McDowell. She says the statue, , the idol is both born and manufactured, quote unquote in heaven in this way of thinking. I noted a similar [00:17:00] emphasis in the Egyptian opening of the mouth ritual. Despite its differences with the Miss P pit pee, there are at least three striking parallels between the two sets of ritual texts.
The rituals were performed in comparable sacred spaces, either in a temple workshop, in a sacred garden, or in a temple tomb. They exhibited a similar overall pattern of creation, animation, feeding, clothing, and installation, and they presented the creation of a divine image in terms of both birth and manufacture.
In both cases, the statue was considered fully functioning, living manifestation of the divine, only after undergoing the opening of the mouth. And in the case of Mesopotamia, first the washing of the mouth. So to step back and just kind of summarize, what you had was ceremonies where you had priests that would do things with idols.
And there were a lot of common threats, right? We actually have different records of rituals, even from Mesopotamia and from Egypt.[00:18:00] And then when you compare the two, there are differences there too. But some of the common threads you see are things like, it's the idol's going to be constructed. The idol is going to be put into this chamber that has water and different spices and things to purify it and to signify birth.
And their incantations that are are, are called down and they believe that this is the moment that is birthed from the heavens. This is now a child of God, right? But it still needs to, there are other things that need to happen as well. So you have things like, well, this idol needs to be able to accept sacrifice, right?
So what does it need to do? It needs to be able to eat. So we gotta do something to make sure its mouth is open, right? It needs to be able to see so it can actually see what's going on in the world and respond to things it needs to hear. So we can pray to it. It needs to smell so that it can, it can take in the incense, right?
We we're vivifying the limbs in the body, so the god can do things in this, this sense of embodiment. These are the kinds of ideas that they had going around in their heads. And these took place in things like a garden, in a grove of trees, right? [00:19:00] There are obvious connections to what we see in Genesis once we start to really look for it, and we're just gonna kind of look at some of those, and then we're gonna carry some of them through Scripture.
Again, we're not saying let's take a bunch of Pagan ideas and then interpret the Bible through that. The way that we're looking at this is these are pagan attempts to do what only God can do that are connecting into the way that creation works and saying God can create life and we envy that. So as a lesser spiritual being, what can I do to possibly try to manipulate things in order to maybe kind of do something that resembles what God did?
Apparently I can make a dead idol that doesn't do anything. But you know maybe there are things that can be done that, where then I interact a bit more with the people that worship me and, and convince them of certain things. And so it's all built around deception. It's built around imitation, right?
But the details make sense because we're talking about something, someone, a spiritual being, trying to imitate God and [00:20:00] trying to bring something to life. And life has a lot of characteristics that are pretty common. We need to be able to see, we need to be able to eat, we need to be able to, to move and live and like, and breathe and all these things.
That's part of being living. So the parallels here are not, you know, because Israel decided to imitate a bunch of pagans. It's because paganism is imitating life.
Carey Griffel: Paganism is imitating what God actually did in creation, and that's what we see over and over. So when we have people who go, why are there similarities? That must mean the Bible is not true! I can't really trust it anymore. How am I supposed to think about that? Well, you think about it from the context of how you've thought about Scripture all along. If you've been a believer in that's how you've been reading Scripture, the fact that Scripture is the truth and the false gods and the false religions are trying to riff off of that basically.
And just because we see those first in history, on some [00:21:00] chronology that we've come up with. Well, first of all, as Dr. Heiser would say that it was just such a quagmire. Like you can't even get into that so much. But there are things you can say, and yes, things did come before the Bible because Israel actually had a history in time.
But that doesn't mean that that's how God works. He transcends time and spiritual beings also are not bound by the, confines of time here on Earth. So there's lots of different ways we can think about that.
Joshua Sherman: So if we get into Genesis and , we start reading from Genesis two and three there are things that just kind of pop out.
So I'm just gonna highlight a few of those, ? And then we'll start to say, okay, well, do we see things that are similar in other places? And what might it be trying to tell us? you have verse seven two seven. Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being .
So this idea of the breath of heaven entering this vessel made of Earth, ? What does that sound like? It's, it sounds [00:22:00] like Paganism is trying to imitate that, and yet they can't. Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east in Eden, and there he put the man that he had formed. So now you, you also have, part of the ceremonies would be installing a divine image or an idol into the temple that it was going to be in, where it would receive worship.
Different with Eden, cuz we're not talking about Adam and Eve receiving worship. That is due to God alone. But you still have the idea of placing the divine image into the garden, into the temple, into the holy of Holies, if you will. If , you understand Eden in that way because all of the cosmos is the temple , in certain ways of looking at things.
Carey Griffel: And of course, in, Genesis we have , the massive theme of trees. Yes. And eating from trees so that it's like, well, hey, why was it a tree that they ate from? Why was that the first sin? Well, you really have to dig into this perspective of what it meant to [00:23:00] be the image of God in God's holy place. And the food of the gods or the food of the kings and the, food of royalty. You know, there, there were certain ways that they ate and commoners weren't going to go into the royal garden and eat from those trees. Right.
Joshua Sherman: But I mean, you also have this idea, that the partaking of the tree in some sense, what you have is the nachash, the serpent offering food to Eve.
This is in some way table fellowship between the human and the divine in a bad way. What I think, if you look at the whole breadth of Scripture , and really kind of understand how things fit together, what I think we're supposed to understand there is that that tree is something that eventually, when Adam and Eve were mature, God would've said, okay, now it's time for you to partake of this, it's time for you to understand this. It's time for you to have knowledge of this. We're going to do this together so that we can do it the right way. And that would involve [00:24:00] communion with God, and it would involve being obedient to God in ways that the way they actually partook were not.
Carey Griffel: I was reading Leviticus not too long ago, and I came up, I, I wish I had written down this reference, but I don't have it in front of me.
But there's a part that talks about the maturing of the trees in the land that they're going into. And Leviticus is of course, very steeped in the sacred space imagery. So this idea of maturing trees needing time in order to be available for human food is a very biblical idea
Joshua Sherman: that just reminds me of, of tree beard, you know, of like, the fact that, you know it, we only, we don't say much in old Entish because it takes a very long time to say or so, you know, something like that.
And then the, the other thing of like, well, that doesn't make much sense, but then again, you are very small.
But we do, we, we, we have this idea, right? And we have the story in Genesis that [00:25:00] Adam and Eve then partook of the tree, they ate of something in a temple garden, which has a lot of parallels again, into what we see , with these different pagan circles trying to vivify idols.
They would place the idle , in the garden, they would open the mouth, they would do all these different things, and then there's a point where they would feed them and their sensory organs, their eyes and ears , were understood basically not to function at all , until birth, until this kind of heavenly birth.
That's kind of how they understood it. . And so you have this connection between eating and having your eyes opened and you kind of go, oh, like, yeah. Hmm. There's a lot of connectivity here. We're not just cherry picking a few things. It's, it's very, very very, very connected. And the serpent plays off of this and he says, you know, you're not gonna die.
God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened. And you'll be like, God knowing good and evil. [00:26:00] You know, part of that does work. Like, you know, later on you, you have this idea like, no, really, they they, they know good and evil. So that part of it worked. But the problem is now they're corrupt, right?
And so God exiles humanity from the garden to keep them from becoming immortal by taking the tree of life, becoming immortal in a corrupt state
Carey Griffel: because it wasn't God who opened their eyes.
Joshua Sherman: one of the things that I think is really interesting is that in this framework, All of these different things that were done are kind of meant, and, the order can be different and there are different ideas about it and whatever, but, but the, the whole idea with all of these ceremonies was that doing these things would move you closer to then , having a fully functioning idol that you would put , in the temple and that you could offer sacrifices to.
And so if we parallel that and we think about it, it's like, oh, like these are, steps that it seems like are taken at least symbolically to say that humanity is becoming more [00:27:00] like, or more able to or less able to actually function the way they were originally designed as imagers of God. This idea that they partook of the food, which is a step forward and their eyes were opened, which is a step forward, but then it's like bad, right?
Not even like, , it's going in the wrong direction. It's like maturing in the wrong direction. So we see them partake of the fruit and their eyes are open, and what happens next? Not only are their eyes opened, but they realize they're naked.
And of, course we have all kinds of compunctions about nudity in the United States, so our minds certainly goes certain places and we get all uncomfortable in church pews and whatever. But I mean, there's some kind of obvious stuff with this, right? We, we often correlate things like recognizing that with a, a point of maturity, ?
We also, I think through this other framework can say one of the things you're supposed to do if [00:28:00] you're trying to progress a divine image into the proper place of being able to fulfill its function is to clothe it properly. I think what we see here, Maybe one of those things of , it's like culturally telling the readers of Genesis, their eyes are open, that's a step forward right after they ate, that's a step forward. But now they've realize, oh no, there's a problem they're actually not prepared for the stage that they've now entered into. Mm. And they did it the wrong way. Ah. And, and they're gonna have all of this kind of compounding sense of like, oh no, like, right.
And you see that, right? Because they try to make coverings for themselves. They're like, well, I guess we'll just cloth ourselves because op, you know, eating of the fruit and getting our eyes open works. We can progress and, become more capable of doing this ourselves if we just take the steps, right. So in a sense, this is almost them trying to act like the pagans. We're just gonna do the steps. Yeah. And we're gonna hope it [00:29:00] works. Yeah. We don't need God. And, and the funny thing about this is, you read a little bit further, right? They make covering for themselves, right? Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden, in the cool today.
And they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, where are you? And he answered, I heard you in the garden. And I was afraid because I was naked. So I hid and God. And God said, who told you you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commended you not to eat from?
The man said the woman, you put here with me, she gave me some fruit the tree and I ate it. And the Lord God said, what is this you have done? Right? So you have this whole, whole exchange and you kind of get to the point of just like, Who told you you were naked. Like it, it's almost like they've covered themselves, but that covering doesn't work.
Right?
And, and so you do get the sense of like, now we're really off into this territory of we're [00:30:00] trying to do it ourselves. We're trying to be all we can be and it's not working and it's bad. , and then you get into this, you know, God cursing the serpent God telling the woman and the man what life is gonna be like for them.
God cursing the ground because of them. So you have all of that happening and then you have God making garments of skin for them. So what is he doing? He's clothing them. He's moving them forward in progression, even though they're off in the wrong direction. There's almost a sense in which God is basically saying , I designed you to image me in this way.
That isn't possible right now where you're at, but I'm still going to carry forward , your purpose of imaging me even in this other mode, even in this other way. And we'll get back to the original purpose cuz I'm not done yet.
Carey Griffel: And what's interesting is that we see that Adam does hear God. Oh. So that might be the one thing that's kind of working.
Joshua Sherman: I hadn't even thought about that. Yeah, [00:31:00] that's great
Carey Griffel: . So God's like, okay, so you can hear me all right. This is what we're gonna do now.
Joshua Sherman: Ah, now that's good. Yeah. Again, like I'll a lot, once you see this stuff, it becomes so obvious cuz it pops out everywhere and then you see it everywhere. And you do have to take a step back and say, am I just reading this into things right.
And sometimes we are, right. But we also don't have to say, this is the meaning. We don't need to come at passages that way. Mm-hmm. We can see layers of meaning, and we can understand that there are different things we're meant to see from different angles, and it's Okay. So
Carey Griffel: Well, and, and the thing is, you, you want to find multiple points of coherence instead of just one word or just one thing that is showing up.
But if you see several of these layers, then it's much more likely that you're onto something.
Joshua Sherman: Absolutely. So let's, let's look at some, examples of, people becoming more or less able in Scripture [00:32:00] using these kinds of details as hints to kind of point that out, or to reinforce it.
Because really if you're reading the surface text, it's pretty obvious, but you may not really connect it to the image of God. You're just gonna say, that was bad, right? It's like, well, actually no, it, it was bad, but it's also bad in a specific way because this is them not fulfilling the purpose they were created for.
So first of all, a good example, right? You have Moses when he's up and he's in the presence of God on Mount Sinai, and he comes down, his face is radiant. So there's glory kind of streaming forth, if you will. That is him in a way acting more like an image is supposed to. Yeah. Yeah. But then we also have another example with Moses, and this is in, in the other direction, right?
So this is looking at Exodus four. Moses is basically say like, God is telling him, here's all this stuff you're gonna do and you can do signs and you can do all these things and you're gonna go tell Pharaoh and Pharaoh's gonna do this, and [00:33:00] blah, blah, blah. And Moses is like, you know, raising his hand like.
Pardon your servant. Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past, nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue, right? So he comes in with that kind of thing and like, I, I don't know, man. And you, you have the sense of, of Moses basically saying like, I'm not really that good at being an image.
Choose someone else, right? Hmm. Right? And God comes back and he says, you know, who gave human beings their mouth? Who, who makes the people deaf or mute? Who gives the sight or makes people blind? Is it not me? Now go and I will help you speak and I will teach you what to say. And Moses is like, pardon your servant, Lord, please send someone else.
So this, it's not even Moses not being able to do the thing. It's that he doesn't want to function in this way. He doesn't want to do this. And, and then you have the Lord's anger burning against Moses and he says, what about your brother Aaron, the [00:34:00] Levite? I know he can speak well,. He is already on his way to meet you and he'll be glad to see you.
You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth. I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it. And you, kind of have this almost like God and prophet relationship set up there.
But another way you can look at it is image of God and prophet or image of God and priest , and this idea that like those are meant to be the same thing, but now they're kind of bifurcated because Moses is refusing to do his job.
Carey Griffel: Listening to the Naked Bible Podcast during the Exodus series Dr. Heiser brought out these points that there's the possibility of, you know, Moses was supposed to be all three offices. He was supposed to be the priest and the king and the prophet, but [00:35:00] Moses kept dropping the ball over and over and over. And so God said, okay, fine. We'll split all of these up. I'm still getting my purposes.
I'm still getting my imagers, accomplishing my representation. They're just gonna have to do it in a collective way instead of each one being Yeah, each of the offices.
Joshua Sherman: And I, I definitely think that's in play. I think that's another one of those kind of steps of, and then not doing it. And so, , and you see God putting things in place to be like, okay, well that failed.
Right? And it's not that God is bad at things, but it's like it's illustrating the fact that like this is, this is the extent to which people with freedom can screw things up. And yet God still, if we read the whole story of Scripture, still bringing things back to the beginning and actually better. Right?
Carey Griffel: , and I think it's really helpful to see Scripture in these lights because we tend to read it and think, well, this is the way [00:36:00] God wanted it all along because this is what happened. Therefore, obviously this was God's will. I mean, to the end, it is God's will. God is kind of, pushing the cue balls this way and that way in order to get stubborn humanity to god's purposes, but we're not foiling his purposes. Nothing is stopping God, but God's just like, okay, we could do this the easy way or we could do this the hard way. Which way do you guys wanna do this?
Joshua Sherman: And I think we get hung up on that because our perspective is bound in time. Our perspective is in the moment.
Yeah. And God's perspective is eternal. So from the perspective of God, you know, he declared the end from the beginning. And they're going to end up that way. And we're just in this very tiny blip in the middle. And there were some issues because God chose to give people freedom, because freedom is one of those things that you kind of need if you want to have relationship that involves love and, and all of those kinds of things. And it's [00:37:00] important. And so he did. And here we are and then Blip! And then, oh, look, God accomplished his plan. Like from an eternal perspective, that's what it looks like.
Mm-hmm. We're just, we're on the other side of it. We can't see that.
Carey Griffel: Right. And we're, we're just the stubborn people who want to, to do it our own way. And God keeps saying, okay, well you can, and my purposes are still going to get accomplished, so it's just going to be more interesting. Or some other adjective like that.
Joshua Sherman: Oh yeah. So another one of these moments I don't know, do you, do you wanna talk about the adornment?
Carey Griffel: Yeah, this one's fascinating. Yeah. This is one that I think that is not something that we pay a whole lot of attention to, especially these days. You know, we tend to have this really strange relationship with fashion and how we dress and what that actually means.
And well, why were Adam and Eve naked and now they're not naked and well, are we supposed to [00:38:00] be naked? And you know, all of those kinds of crazy kinds of things that we attach because we have certain meanings that we attach to it. And those meanings are not necessarily the same meanings that the ancient person would've had.
Like we keep bringing up Carmen Imes name, but we're gonna bring it up again because she has her book Bearing God's name. And that is very connected to this adornment idea as well. So if you haven't read that book, highly recommend it. , so it is Exodus that we see this idea of adornment really brought out forth because we have the concept of the people leaving Egypt and they don't leave Egypt empty handed.
In Exodus 1235, it says, the people of Israel had also done as Moses told them for, they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing. So it's , the Pagan God worshipers who are giving the [00:39:00] Israelites their gold and their silver, and also not just gold and silver, but clothing.
It's, this isn't a fashion thing. Like,
Joshua Sherman: well, and, and it goes beyond that, you know, leaving with livestock so they can make sacrifices to God. But you also have this idea through this framework saying it seems like this is a step towards the people of Israel being able to function properly as divine images.
Oh, this is a step in the right direction. This is good.
Carey Griffel: Yeah.
And because again, our modern perspectives are putting meaning into the text for all of these things. And our meanings are not necessarily lined up with what the ancient person would be thinking , of in the same context.
Joshua Sherman: And so if we take this and we say what if, ? What if this is pointing out that they've now moved more, in the direction of being able to fulfill the purpose God created humanity for? If we move [00:40:00] that forward into Exodus 32 then we have the incident with the golden calf.
And this is really interesting cuz this gets straight into the way that, that Paul talks about exchanging the image, exchanging the glory of God for these images of, of creation, right? You literally have the people saying, like Aaron, our priests, like, not only is it just somebody, but it's like, let's ask the priest because that's the best person to corrupt, right?
So you have this idea of like asking the person that's probably most in the place of functioning properly, as an image of God. If you, you know, in terms of priesthood, that idea is there and they're saying, you know, come make us gods, right? Make us these, these gods that brought us out of Egypt.
And so Aaron answers them and he says, take off the golden earrings that you are wearing. So take off the things you got from the Egyptians unadorn yourselves. You're now basically becoming less able to properly worship [00:41:00] God and properly image God because you're doing this. , and that they do it.
They take them off, he melts them down, he makes the golden calf, he says, these are your gods. And then when Moses comes down, , you also have this point where he gets really mad, he burns it with fire, he grinds it into a powder, scatters it on the water, and he makes them drink it. So now you have a connectivity between this idea of adornment and imaging language. You have this connection in with idolatry and causing problems with properly imaging God. And you also have this connectivity into themes later on, like in Numbers , where you see a description of the test for adultery, ? And the test for adultery is like, we're just gonna put some dirt in this water and the woman's gonna drink it. And if, if she's guilty, then like bad things happen. Right? You have that kind of motif here with Moses basically saying like, okay, Israel, like, here's what you wanted, so drink it and let's see what happens. , and that is another theme that carries forward into [00:42:00] it, this idea that idolatry and adultery are almost connected because you have these themes of Israel being the bride of God.
Carey Griffel: , it's just this waveform that they keep moving up, getting a little bit closer and then putting themselves back down into the pit and then getting up , and God's like, okay. , and I wonder if that the act of having them drink it is, is maybe connected to some internalization idea of like, okay.
You guys were, adorned like an idol, like, like a proper image. You threw all of that away in order to make something that you weren't supposed to do. So here, let's, let's try and get you to really...
Joshua Sherman: we're gonna make it part of who you are because you are what you eat, right? Yeah. Right,
Carey Griffel: There was the eating of the tree and now here we are at the next level, like of, of what's going on here. It just seems to be more of [00:43:00] this idea of escalation that we keep seeing going through Scripture.
Joshua Sherman: another connectivity that we have and I'm gonna see if I can find this actually.
But there, there's a place in McDowell's book where she talks about the fact that , the statue, like the idol that people , have specifically talks about the fact that , the adornment is for splendor and glory. . And then you have, in Exodus 28, this description of the clothing that is to be made for the high priest and for the priests.
28 verse one. I have Aaron, your brother, brought to you from , among the Israelites, along with his son's name, ABI Eliza, an so they may serve priests, make sacred garments for your brother Aaron, to give him dignity and honor. Right. And so you, you have this almost direct connection of the kinds of things they dressed the priest in and the kinds of things that Canaanites dress their [00:44:00] idols in are basically the same, you know? Which again, kinda has that connection, but also the reinforcement of like, I am a living image of the living God, and you are just imitation.
Carey Griffel: And it's easy to just say, well, that was just the high priest.
That's another thing that I think that Dr. Heiser brought up in his Exodus series is the people rejected being priests. They said, no, no, no, nevermind. Just have one person and that one person can be in the danger zone. We don't really want that.
Joshua Sherman: Yeah. Send Moses up the mountain. We're not really into that.
Yeah.
Carey Griffel: We're not cool with that. So,
Joshua Sherman: but yeah, for me, for me, that part of what that connects into is this a again, you have a sense of God saying like, okay, you guys don't seem to get it. That's okay. You're a little slow. We'll take it slow. I'm going to establish an office of the priesthood. And that [00:45:00] office of the priesthood is going to be one of the ways that somebody most directly acts the way you're supposed to as an image of God.
And that's going to have an impact, right? So again, you see God kind of moving things forward. And yet even with those institutions, even with the things God does to, make this available to people, you see the continual failure of people. And it's almost like they're setting up for something.
But let's, let's talk a little bit more about idols, I guess, and then idolatry, and then we can get into some of the other places some of the stuff pops out.
Carey Griffel: I mean, we've kind of jumped around a bit here and there, but I think that everyone can kind of follow , the trail we're leaving in and it's, it's starting, well, when I first started looking at this, it was like, okay. Yes. , I see this connection point and I see this connection point, and I see this connection point. And then I left it for a while and I said, well, that's really cool, and that's really, really important. And I understood that it was mm-hmm all through [00:46:00] Scripture, but it wasn't until you really dig into the details of exactly what seeing means in Scripture and exactly what hearing means in Scripture, and exactly how those kinds of things interplay into things because you know, it's easy.... oh yeah. Well, of course you have to see and you have to hear in order to do anything or to understand Scripture or to to hear the, the leaders of the Israelites. But once you see that, that is idolatry language and that is connected to Genesis in the garden and exodus and Mount Sinai and the entry into the promise that all of those things, like there's this thread that you can just follow all through.
It's, it's crazy. In first Samuel 1221, it says, do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you because they are useless. [00:47:00] And I, I find that repetition of the word useless, quite interesting there.
Joshua Sherman: It's probably on purpose,
Carey Griffel: right? Hmm. Is there a useful idol, then? It's like, we, we tend to look at that kind of language and we go, oh, well, that just means that idols are nothing and that anything about an idol is completely useless.
We're we're missing that subtext that's going to be there when the ancient person hears or reads that.
Joshua Sherman: , and part of that is, , They're useless because they're an idol of a God that is not the most high, and what he wants to happen is going to happen no matter what they have to say about it, right. So you have some of that comparative stuff going on, but they're also useless in the sense that they can't accomplish the purpose that divine images were created for in the first place, because they're not human. And you have to be human. And humans are created to image the most high, and they're not made to image the most high.
Like there's all of those layers of this being a failure [00:48:00] to actually accomplish mm-hmm the task. Mm-hmm.
Carey Griffel: So they're useless , in the ultimate sense of the word. They genuinely cannot walk. They genuinely cannot eat. They genuinely cannot hear or see. The people who would make the idols and who would use the idols, this is how they would interact with their gods. Right. And they would hope that something was going on, but they didn't really know if the God was there, if the God was happy with them, they wouldn't know that until what they wanted to happen would happen. Then they would say, oh, look, look at that.
We did make the God happy. Let's do that again.
Joshua Sherman: Look, and, and if you wanna get into a fun critique of this whole idea diving a little bit into the Septuagint , and reading Bel and the Dragon as a fun little kind of anecdotal thing of like, mm, no, really, it's not that the gods are eating the offerings you put before them.... the priest are lying to you. Yeah. I mean, we have this in, and you see it in, in Habbakuk two 18, Jeremiah 10 [00:49:00] 14, Leviticus 26 30, Deuteronomy 32 21, a whole bunch of other passages. This idea , that idols are worthless. They are useless. They don't function properly. They can't do the job , that humans were created to do.
They're blind, they're deaf, they're dumb. They can't walk. Someone has to carry them. Like all of these different things, right? And then you get into the connection that we talked about last time with the fact that, those who make idols and those who worship idols become like the idols, right? So all who make idols are nothing. And the things that they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind. They're ignorant to their own shame. Isaiah 44, 9, second King, 1715, they rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their ancestors and the statutes he had warned them to keep, they followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless, right?
It's like we're seeing a pattern, right? Jeremiah two 11, has a nation ever changed its gods yet that, yet they are not gods at all. But my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless [00:50:00] idols. Does that not sound like Romans one? So now you even have what Paul is posing mostly as a critique, I think of Gentiles in chapter one and then turning it onto the Jews in chapter two.
You also have things in, in the Old Testament that kind of make it clear, like that distinction there between people having problem with idolatry is not as clear as you think.
Carey Griffel: Well, and people turn to these kinds of passages all the time and they say, well, that just means that the gods aren't real because these are only blocks of wood.
Yeah, kinda. Yeah.
Joshua Sherman: And, and, and God really had a party. Yahweh really had a party when he stomped on the, on the wooden blocks. In, in, in Egypt. Right.
I'm going to judge those wooden blocks. Judge 'em real good.
Carey Griffel: In the, the second King's passage that you read, it says they followed worthless idols and themselves [00:51:00] became worthless. So they're making a connection between the idol and the idol maker and how those are worthless. But why are they worthless?
Are they, is it because they don't exist or is it because they're not functioning because they're not actually doing what they claimed to do to begin with? And they're certainly not doing what an a real idol ought to do that God would be putting forth.
Joshua Sherman: Yes. , and you see how relationally this causes problems.
So in Jonah two eight, those who clinging to worthless idols turn away from God's love for them. Like how direct can you get? Right? Yeah. Ezekiel six, nine. , then makes these connections between you know, connections with lusting after their idols, right? So now you have a, again, that kind of adulterated language and an idolatry con connected together.
And, and there are many, many more passages. And you see it in the Psalms, you see it in the prophets especially. But you know, you can even go beyond there and see bits and pieces of things. So we can [00:52:00] also look at specific abilities, if you will, and just kind of say, okay, so if there's a general pattern, do we see even more specific things that that start to kind of illustrate this?
Right? So let's take the, in the instance of sight.
Carey Griffel: So in Isaiah 56 10, it says, Israel's watchmen are blind. They all lack knowledge. They are all mute dogs. They cannot bark. They lie around and dream. They love to sleep. That's got some really good imagery in it, right?
Joshua Sherman: And they're it has consequences, right? Mm-hmm. Because we're talking about the watchmen. Yeah. Right? So these are the people that are supposed to be keeping guard and then letting people know if trouble is approaching and they're like a dog that can't bark. Oh, shoot. Do we know trouble is approaching?
Can't tell my dog doesn't bark. Like that's not good. And
Carey Griffel: I love that this passage is bringing up the idea of sleeping, because [00:53:00] that is quite an interesting image as well, if you wanted to trace that through Scripture. We have Adam who was asleep when Eve was brought out, and you know, just on and on from there, but.
Joshua Sherman: That's one I haven't traced yet. So more homework.
Carey Griffel: Everyone gets homework this time. In John 1240, it says he has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts so they can neither see with their eyes nor understand with their hearts nor turn, and I would heal them.
Joshua Sherman: And that one seems pretty harsh. Yeah.
Yeah. You put that in perspective , and I think what we see there is essentially what Paul is describing in Romans where he's talking about a partial hardening coming upon Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, right? So if you're going to have a crucified Messiah, you need to have people that yell, crucify.
If you're going to have the gospel go out to all the nations, You, you kind of almost have to have some [00:54:00] level of rejection , in the synagogues that Paul faced in order for it to get to the Gentiles, because getting it the Gentiles is kind of the last thing on most people's minds among the Jews, right?
So Right. You have this kind of pressure pushing everything out and this, this blinding that you hear it's God doing something in order to make all of that possible. Right. Then of course you also have second Corinthians four, four who talks about the God of this age blinding the minds of unbelievers, right?
So you can look at this and you can say, is it God using the devil to do the blinding that was talked about in John 12, or are these two different kinds of things? ? I think maybe in this case we might be talking about unbelievers amongst the Gentiles in Second Corinthians, since that's more of their context.
But even there you have this idea of blinding the minds of the unbelievers so they cannot see the light. Of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. Right. And it's not just so that they can't see [00:55:00] him, but it, it's again, kind of pointing out like Christ is the image that's functioning.
He's the one that's truly doing all of this, and the unbelievers are blind to it. A lot of people from within Israel are blind to it. They are not functioning properly. And so Christ needs to come in order to enable that to happen. Mm-hmm.
Carey Griffel: The connection of sight and blindness and light and to glory. That, that just, I don't know.
It's just one of those themes that really appeals to me because it's so primal and I think maybe for us today, we have a harder time understanding that it's like, well, we have light around us all the time if we want, even when we go out at night here in the world. It's much brighter than it would've been for the ancient person, for most of us, because of all the ambient light and everything else.
Joshua Sherman: One of the other connections we then see is you look at Matthew 15 where Jesus' disciples come to him and they're [00:56:00] like, Do you, do you know that you made the Pharisees mad? Like this is bad. Right? They're kind of freaking out and, and Jesus just says, you know, every plant that my heavenly father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.
Leave them. They are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. And we viscerally know what that means when we think about the blindly and the blind, kind of visually in our imagination, we can see it in terms of understanding the truth. And so you don't wanna follow somebody that doesn't have the truth.
But I do think there's another layer you can, look at this at and basically say like, if someone is not in a place where they're imaging God well, why would you follow them? Because they're not gonna help you to do that, and that's what you were made to do. You know, like it's kind of a big deal.
It gets more into this question of, Do I follow the teacher that quote unquote is very biblical and really, you [00:57:00] know, toes the line and whatever, but that's also just a jerk. Hmm. Right. Yeah. What are they doing? Are, are they representing God well? I'm not sure. And a lot of cases I'd probably say no.
Right. So what do you do with that?
Carey Griffel: I think we tend to disregard the impact that other people have on us when we surround ourselves with the people that we surround ourselves with. So, you know, this is talking directly about the Jewish leaders or the people who want to be seen as the leaders, the people of high prominence in Jewish society.
This is very insulting to them, and, this tells where they're going to ultimately end up and where their followers are going to end up if they keep going down those paths. Yeah. And the connection with Saul and in Acts nine.
Joshua Sherman: This one is cool on like three different levels.
Carey Griffel: Yeah. This one has so much into it, and it, it's just, it's just packed.
[00:58:00] I'm just gonna read, starting in verse eight Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he could see nothing. So they him by the, yeah. So they let him by the hand into Damascus. For three days, he was blind in a vision, he has seen a man named Ananais come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.
Then Ananais went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here, has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately something like scales fell from Saul's eyes and he could see again.
He got up and was baptized. And after taking some food, he regained his strength. It fascinates me that we have the issue of the eyes, then we have baptism, then we have the eating of food after that. Mm-hmm. And only [00:59:00] then did he regain his strength?
Joshua Sherman: Yeah. Well, he sent me so that you may see again.
Right. So God is going to enable you to properly function as an imager and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Well, gee, I mean, talk about embodiment of God. That's kind of a big deal. Right. And then you also have, you know, immediately something like scales. It's, it's not just that his eyes are opened.
Right. Cuz they could have just said, and then his eyes were opened. And that would already come loaded with a whole bunch of stuff. But you know, something like scales falling from his eyes, that brings back serpent imagery. Mm-hmm. So now you almost have this sense of, and now this one who was unable to properly image God because of the way that he was understanding things, that he was persecuting the church, he was doing these things even to the point of basically doing the deeds of the devil. Of the serpent. Right. Which, which comes with that [01:00:00] connotation of, of being a child of the devil by virtue of what you're doing, right? Now, this person even has been brought back to, right. This person has been brought back to now he's going to be functioning well as an image of God because he's beheld Christ, because he is now acting in fielty to Christ the perfect image of God.
Carey Griffel: And God could have restored his sight just by a random miracle. Mm-hmm. But he sent someone to do this, to Saul, to participate in the scales falling from his eyes and his ability to be able to see and I, I think that speaks a lot about the discipleship walk of people and , the interconnectedness of the body of Christ and what that means as far as being the image.
Mm-hmm. Like, we're not just imaging God, there's an image over there and there's an image over there, and we're all just kind of doing our things separately. No, we're a very cohesive group that should be working on this and [01:01:00] doing things together.
Joshua Sherman: A lot of the rest of this stuff, as I'm looking at it, I'm thinking about hearing, I'm thinking about seeing and perceiving.
We just, we have more of these layers that you get into that's just like God basically saying, israel, much of Israel at least has failed at the purpose , they were brought together for, because they are still blind and deaf. They are still dumb. They are still lacking understanding and perception.
These are all things they're supposed to have if they're going to properly function as the image of God, collectively, individually, right? , and so we see things like Isaiah 42, 8, 18 and 19. We see Matthew 11, five, Isaiah six nine, Matthew 13, 13 through 14. All of these kinds of things, right? And then you get into the contrast, where instead of something like [01:02:00] Matthew, you know, this is why I speak to them in parables though, seeing they do not see though hearing they do not understand in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah you will be ever hearing, but never understanding, you'll be ever seeing, but never perceiving much like the idols that you went after and that's why you went into exile, right? All of it being connected. You then have the flip side, right? When Jesus arrives and you have Isaiah 11, two talking about the spirit of God resting on the Messiah, the one who is to come, the spirit of the Lord will rest on him. Oh, what is that? , that's imaging language, right? The spirit of wisdom and understanding. Oh, he's, he has understanding the spirit of counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, right? So you have Jesus who is embodying now what it's supposed to be the image of God. You also have jesus reading from the scroll and basically saying like, you know, the spirit of the Lord is upon me and I'm gonna preach good news to the poor and recovery of sight to the blind and raising the dead. Like all of these things [01:03:00] are bringing people back into what they are supposed to be , as people, as imagers. And you even get to the point where you start going like, wait a minute. Jesus healing ministry feels like it has overtones of this because you have, in Luke 7 21 and 22, at that very time, Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind.
Oh, it's like, maybe, maybe there is a, a layer of this that's saying, and he is going to enable them to be what they were designed to be in the first place. Right? So he replied to the messengers. This is when messengers are sent from John the Baptist. To Jesus to basically say, are you who you say you are .
And he is like, you know, yes I am. I've been doing these things. Go back and report to John what you have seen, the blind received sight, the lame walk, those of leprosy are cleansed the deaf here, the dead are raised and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. All of these things are connected into imaging properly, at least when we get into [01:04:00] what it means to image in the sense also of exercising rule and justice.
Carey Griffel: I knew you were gonna say justice.
Joshua Sherman: Of course.
Carey Griffel: Yeah. Yeah. It mentions the poor and Yeah. There's a lot of stuff. Yeah. We're gonna have a justice series and that's gonna be interesting.
Joshua Sherman: Yes. Yeah. No, I mean that, that'll be really good.
That'll be really good.
Carey Griffel: There's just so much to see here and to dig into. And like Tim Mackey says, is this is Jewish meditation literature and you can just pour through it and pour through it and see so many things.
Joshua Sherman: Oh, and if we wanna give a few more rabbit trails for people to go look for. Right. Homework.
Yeah. Start thinking about Jesus, the body of Christ, new birth. Right. John Juan, John three, start thinking about new covenant Ezekiel 36 37, and [01:05:00] Jeremiah 31 . Moses and Aaron, right. Which we actually did talk about God opening Lydia's heart and opening her understanding so that she could receive the truth.
What it means to truly image a God who gave up himself. When Paul is talking about us being living sacrifices in Romans, like start to just kind of look at some of these layers and, these things and see. Oh, does this connect into anything that, that's connected into imaging language? Does it connect into seeing, does it connect into being able to speak?
Does it connect into being able to walk? Does it connect into glory? Does it connect into splendor? Does like, ask these questions and see what pops out to you? Because more often than not, you're gonna find something where you go like, Ooh, that's, oh. That's cool.
Carey Griffel: Yeah, because it's more than just the themes that keep showing up.
It's the themes that intersect with the people's lives who are living these things out in Scripture. So when you [01:06:00] see these themes connected to, to actual people and actual stories in the Bible, then you're going to be able to draw out nuance from those stories and meaning from those stories because of how those people act, whether or not they are acting in the way that God would have them act, or whether they're acting in the way that the serpent would have them act, or, you know, whatever.
So I, I think that it's more than just word studies. It's more than just noticing these cool patterns and these cool themes. It's actually looking at people's lives because what we see in Scripture is these patterns that happen over and over, and a lot of it's escalation and a lot of it is restitution sometimes as well.
And seeing how restitution also happens through the work of the prophets or through the work of Christ, can help lead us on our own discipleship walks in understanding how we should be embodying the image and how [01:07:00] we can be interacting with the body of Christ and outside of the body of Christ to bring people into it.
Joshua Sherman: Yes, , and really a lot of what we're doing here is looking in all these little details that pop up, right? And there's just little points of connectivity and you go, oh, that, that's interesting, that seems to connect in here. When you continue to do this and you keep looking into it and you keep digging into different layers of things, the more and more you look at it, the more you realize, like most of the Bible is about this. It's not just Genesis. Yeah. And a couple of verses where Paul uses image of God to describe Christ, . This whole wrestling match, this whole back and forth, this whole tension of humanity stepping into and living into what we were created for, and being pulled away from that by our own desires, by the influences of false gods and of demons.
Like all of that [01:08:00] is part of the drama that's happening in Scripture. And what God is doing is bringing things back to the point where we are properly functioning, that brings creation back to the point where it's supposed to be. This is all happening through Christ. And you know, Paul comes right out and says this in Romans eight, like 18 through 21.
He says, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be a revealed in us. Hello, glory image language for the creation awaits an eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. Oh, image, children, kinship. Hmm. That's all connected there too. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. All right, so end to end, we have this narrative thread. We have this motif that goes, and all the things we're [01:09:00] picking at tonight as we're looking at details are just reinforcing the fact that this is a big deal.
Carey Griffel: And for those not used to this kind of thing. This is what biblical theology is.
Joshua Sherman: It's not just proof texting, it's tracing. Mm-hmm. Lines and themes. Yeah. And narratives, motifs, and, right.
Carey Griffel: And, and you can see that y you can't just bundle all of this up into this single statement of, here it is. And that's all there is to it.
Because if you do that, you're missing out on a lot of the detail that is going to help you be a disciple and live out your life and see the good and the bad, and the ugly and the beautiful and all of those things. Did you wanna go ahead and end with the Psalm 82 thing?
Joshua Sherman: Yeah, why not? So this is just cool because when you read something like Psalm 82 and you get into the debates about, you know, is this a [01:10:00] divine council? Is this a council of judges? What is this right? I think that a lot of what we've been talking about helps to really clarify what this psalm is. And there are layers that do kind of connect into both the heavenly and the earthly. But you can see pretty clearly some of the things that we've been talking about related to idolatry here.
When you know what the language to look for to the imaging here, when you know what to look for and to the expectation that we have for God arising and making things right. God presides in the Great Assembly in the Divine Council, he renders judgment among the gods. He says, how long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked?
Defend the weak and the fatherless, uphold the cause of the poor and of the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy. Deliver them from the hand of the wicked. The gods know nothing. They understand nothing. They [01:11:00] walk about in darkness, and therefore all the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, you are gods, you are all sons of the most high, but you will die like mere mortals.
You will fall like every other ruler. Rise up, oh God, judge the earth for all the nations are your inheritance.
Carey Griffel: A lot of people have read that psalm over and over and over and never looked at in terms of imaging language. And this is what we can do throughout Scripture again and again and again.
So for those listening, that's your homework. As you're reading, the more you look at this, the more you can really pull out these threads for yourself and see just how prevalent it is, just how important it is, just how embedded it is into God's purposes and how God wants to see the world be.
This was a great conversation, Joshua. I really appreciate you coming [01:12:00] and having it, and I don't think we're done yet, but but this is just such, such a rich topic that I think can really help us imagers.
Joshua Sherman: Yeah, I mean, it, I think it, it helps us to, to see why idolatry is so bad. It helps us to see why sin is so terrible. It helps to see the impact that has not only on ourselves, but on the people around us, on creation.
And it helps us to understand our need for Christ and helps us to appreciate what he has done and what he is doing to make all things right. So the more that we can explore that and understand it and put it in perspective, it helps. When you're facing things and, you're, you know, wow, I really want to do that particular sin that I like, or Man, that person's just a jerk. I'm going to tell them they're a jerk instead of treating them like [01:13:00] they're are an imager of God, even if they're not acting like it. it really helps to put a lot of things in perspective to where I think we can better feel solid in our faith, and we can better treat people as if we actually believe what we say we believe.
Carey Griffel: Okay, we've really run over time here and we're gonna stop the conversation, but we're not done yet. We will be back with some other conversations and I really highly recommend that everyone takes some of these ideas that we have brought forward. And look at some of these passages and do your own searches and as you're reading Scriptures, see what you can find yourself because this is not beyond the average Bible student to be understanding these passages on their own. Once they understand where all of this is coming from, the context of it and the culture and these ideas that all kind of combine to form the framework that we see the image of God in.
So [01:14:00] I hope this was all really helpful to you and I hope you all enjoyed listening. If you have any questions about our series or about the image of God in general, we would love to hear them. So you can message me on Facebook. You can ask them in my Facebook discussion group. You can email me at
[email protected].
I would love to hear them. We would love to address them in a q and a type of an episode or just in another conversation we're having. Again, I really appreciate everyone listening. I appreciate those who share these episodes and who have rated the podcast on the various platforms. I do have a YouTube channel as well, where these are hosted, so if you like and subscribe there and leave comments on the videos, that's really helpful to the algorithms and helpful to get other people to be able to find this content that might be helpful to them.
I really hope you guys are enjoying this series. I know I am. I am learning a lot just in the [01:15:00] conversations and in the research and in reading Scripture myself and seeing these things laid out in front of me.
Don't forget to ask questions. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Don't forget to comment and come and participate in any way that you can because we love having these conversations together. It's a really good group on Facebook. And we're getting some really good conversations going and I appreciate everyone there who participates.
I am as well, trying to come up with some other ideas for people to help participate and help support me in what I'm doing because this does cost me money and it does take me a lot of time. so look forward to those kinds of things if you're interested. If not, you can just keep listening for free, and that's fine too. , just sharing and commenting and doing all of those things is such an immense help , to promote what I'm doing here. So I, I appreciate all of that I thank each one of you for listening.
Also I thank Wintergatan for the music, and I hope [01:16:00] you all have a blessed week. See you later.
